IRAQ. UN DECLINES TO TRAIN IRAQIS FOR SADDAM TRIAL

the United Nations has rejected a request from Iraqi leaders to train some 30 judges and prosecutors who would be trying former President Saddam Hussein, in part because Baghdad has the death penalty, a UN spokesman said.
The request was made to Carla del Ponte, chief prosecutor at the UN war crimes tribunal on the former Yugoslavia in the Hague, but UN Secretary-General Annan turned it down, spokesman Stephane Dujarric said. He said del Ponte and the court were under pressure to meet target dates
to complete their work and that the United Nations had no mandate to help train Iraqi judges. Judicial assistance, however, was among the tasks the world body could undertake in Iraq in previous Security Council resolutions.
Dujarric also said the request was rejected because "serious doubts exist regarding the capability of the Iraqi special tribunal to meet relevant international standards."
"The secretary-general recently stated that UN officials should not be directly involved in lending assistance to any court or tribunal that is empowered to impose the death penalty," he said in answer to questions.
Annan's position was first reported by the New York Times, which said that a weeklong training session for Iraqi judges and prosecutors chosen to try Saddam and his key associates ended in London on Monday. Both Iraqis and their Western advisers agreed that Iraqis were unprepared to
undertake full-fledged trials soon.
The London courses were organized by American lawyers who assist Iraqi investigators and judges in Baghdad. Britain sent legal experts to the training sessions but Iraqis were not expected to be ready to start proceedings next month as originally planned.
HOC Secretary General Sergio D’Elia welcomed Annan’s refusal to assist a tribunal empowered to impose the death penalty.
“The UN did well to refuse the Iraqi request for judicial assistance in Saddam’s trial. The Italian, other EU and any other government from abolitionist countries would do well to follow the same line,” D’Elia said.
“We remain committed to our Hands off Saddam campaign. We are not advocating his impunity, but we want to assure the inviolability of his person.
So long as Iraq retains the death penalty in its laws, the right thing to do is withhold co-operation for a trial that may have a death sentence as its outcome.”
On August 8, 2004 the Iraqi government reinstated the death penalty for murderers, drug traffickers and those endangering national security.
Mass killings, strikes against Iraq's vital infrastructure and biological weapons attacks would also be punishable by death, Deputy Justice Minister Busho Ibrahim said.